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Meeting in the Middle: the 13th Annual Longwood Undergraduate Medieval Research Conference

Friday, April 5, 20191:56PM - Sunday, April 7, 20191:56PM
At Nance Room of Dorrill Hall (Refreshments will be adjacent in the Tea Room)
Organized by
Larissa Tracy (EML) and Steven Isaac (HPSP)

For 13 years, Longwood University has hosted Meeting in the Middle, an undergraduate research conference in medieval studies. The conference is an interdisciplinary buffet of the best scholarship from across the nation. While we naturally see heavy participation from Virginia and her surrounding states, we draw regularly from across the South, the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest, and have been happy to welcome participants from the West Coast and the United Kingdom.

This year's theme, "Forging Medieval Identity," opens the possibility for students to look at both the myriad ways that medieval people constructed their sense(s) of identity and how modern folk tap into the same (not always for admirable purposes, sadly). Student papers this year will look at issues such as how medieval identity was policed by the church, the role of gender, role playing (in real life and in games) and religious identities, and how narrative shapes such conceptions.

As in prior years, we welcome two plenary speakers as part of the lineup. This year we are pleased to welcome Dr. Jonathan Hsy of George Washington University and Dr. Nicholas Paul, chair of medieval studies at Fordham University.

The other major attraction of the conference is the Friday night reception/banquet/lecture, from 6-9 p.m. While the reception and lecture are open to all comers, the banquet does require an advance registration and fee.

Full details for the conference schedule, the paper presentations, the plenary lectures and how to register for the banquet are available on our conference website: www.longwood.edu/medieval